The Basement
by Claykalin
Summary: Theodore Nott reflects on his childhood through a tour of his father's domain beneath their house. Rated for strong violence and torture


**The Basement**

**_A/N: _**_Hello! This one shot is written for day five of the Advent Calendar Competition (link can be found on my bio)_

_Prompt: Ice Rink / Ice Skating_

_**_Caution: _**_cruel and violent scenarios lie ahead, not for the faint hearted__

_**Disclaimer:**_****_I do not own any rights to the Harry Potter series nor am I making any money from writing this, just having a lot of fun!_

_Enjoy!_

…

There's a sort of basement beneath my house, but basement has never been the right word to encompass the horrors and monstrosities committed down there over the years.

My father Theodore Nott (Senior) was the Dark Lord's right hand man during the Great War before I was born. As such, the house I grew up in came with certain _details_ that none of my other friends were ever exposed to.

Behind a black door that can only be opened with the touch of a Nott wand is a winding staircase that leads to a circular room, supposedly designed in likeness to the Department of Mysteries where my mother worked. In the centre of the atrium is a small wooden table with a single red candle, forever burning since before I was born. Dark grey flagstones line not only the floor but the walls and low ceiling, and from here there are six more doors, all identical unless you know what to look for (the tiny scratch marks along the bottom of the doors).

_My father took me through the first door when I was six: the Questioning Room_

Inside, an old woman was bound to a board, lying flat on her back. At six years old I could barely see over the top of the bench, but my father had graciously lifted me so I could see. Her clothing was torn in places and soaked with blood in others. I saw no signs of being tied down, but that didn't mean there wasn't any. After a few sharp words from my father about blood purity and Muggleborn intolerance, he raised his wand and killed her.

_I've never walked through the second door: the False Stair._

I've opened the door just to stare at it a couple of times though. Beyond the doorway is a staircase leading to a door made of glass, and through it a beautiful sky blue can be seen and sunlight filters merrily through the pains that even shake a little, as though there were wind. In reality, the door is a trap, should anyone manage to escape. Running through the doorway will merely drop you into a well-like pit, enchanted to be inescapable. Only my father can pull someone out of there.

_Most of my time in this hell is spent through the third door: the Holding Cells._

Of course, no one told me what was there when I was first taken through at seven years old. The smell of rotting flesh, vomit, sewerage and sweat had me on my knees contributing to the stench whilst my father and two of his cronies laughed. They let me suffer for several minutes, long after I'd started dry wretching, before my father finally pointed his wand at me (and when I say I feared for my life for that split second, I _feared for my life_) and suddenly all I could smell was the garden bed my grandmother cared for.

When I finally got a look at the room, I could see that it was in fact a massive expanse of gloom and dark. Disappearing into the distance were aisles and aisles of cages formed by simple vertical bars that stood seven metres tall. Inside many were rags and flat pillows, whilst only the occasional cell contained a huddled figure, all wearing the same black rags. Many were shivering, some were shouting or screaming (though from outside the individual cell none of their cries could be heard), and none stood.

The only light in the fog-like atmosphere came from a thousand floating red candles, an idea that was unique to me until the first time I entered the Great Hall. Greg, the only other who'd seen what my Victorian Mansion sat on top of, managed to control himself and help drag me along to be sorted, as I was about to be sick. In fact, it was some time before I was able to eat anything in the Hall, often my friends would bring me food. Thankfully none asked why and Greg was kind enough not to tell.

_Behind door four lies one of the worst memories of my childhood: the Torture Rooms._

In the words of my lovable father, these rooms where to cater for 'no questions, just pain' scenarios with our unwilling quests. After the Prewett Christmas Ball when I was nine, my drunken father dragged me downstairs in a rage, and I fought little for he would only resort to stupefying and levitating me down there to kill me. Instead, he grabbed six random prisoners and had them march through to the Torture Rooms blindfolded. In the classroom sized space he cast a charm to freeze the floor.

_An ice skating rink_, he'd proclaimed proudly, though he could not stand without leaning on me or the wall. _Whoever can do a proper figure skater's rotation can go free!_

He'd un-blindfolded them all and charmed their bare feet to suddenly be wearing ice skates, high end quality ones that looked odd underneath the black rags they'd worn. None of them had moved at first, half terrified and half too weak to barely stand themselves. But they weren't drunk, they were starved and injured and emotionally dead already.

When they did nothing but stand and sway on their new footwear, my father sent a _crucio_ at the nearest one, and she screamed and fell to the ground, lifeless. The others started to try and shuffle, but it quickly descended into a cacophony of curses and screaming and the hollow thuds and cracks as one by one they dropped to the ground. He'd done horrible things to their bodies, and invited me to do so with him. I tried to refuse but a quick jab of his wand and the resulting burning sensation in my arm had me following his orders.

He had his wand, so his mutilations were much more creative and thorough. I simply tore out the hairs of one lady, jumped on the leg of a man so much that it was more bruised than unbruised, and eventually my father challenged me to a weight-lifting game. I could only hold up the two he levitated above me before I, too, stumbled to the ground. The bodies didn't land on me but I still heard the sickening snaps of bones.

_I've never crossed the fifth doorway either: the Stunner._

Another false door, this one simply stuns anyone who walks through it. The door is charmed so that the stunned victims fall backwards into the atrium. To this day I'm unsure of what lies beyond, but as a boy I knew it as the Room of Shadows, for that was all it held.

_I had never entered the sixth and final door until my first year at Hogwarts, when I came home for Christmas: the Group Sessions._

At first there is a hallway of blinding white light, which would be an assault on the senses if you'd been outside in the sun already, but was much worse after the dull lighting of one red candle (sure, it's an eternal flame, but it's still a very _faint_ flame). The floor, walls, ceiling and even doors were a solid, pure, unnatural white. The hallway had twenty doors, and I'd since learned that the door frames changed colours depending on the status of that room. A blue doorway means the room is clear and empty, green is also empty but not clean (I'd rather not explain what that entails), red indicates a group of people are currently in that room being magically tortured, and purple meant some poor soul had been left in their to think, most likely after watching their loved ones die.

It was to a red doorway that my mother took me. She was rarely down in these forsaken chambers, but I still didn't take her presence as a good sign. Inside, I recognised a girl from my Herbology class. Her name was Sally-Anne Perks, and I knew she was a Muggleborn. It didn't take much for me to guess who the two adults in the room were, bound and gagged and bleeding as they were. Sally-Anne herself was tied by her wrists on a chain that hung from the ceiling, and her feet just touched the ground.

She, too, was gagged, but nothing could hide the recognition and friendship in her eyes when she saw me. My father, who was already in the room with Mr Goyle (Greg's uncle) and Mr Burke (Millicent's uncle) saw it at once. He sent a curse at me that felt like an anvil had slammed into the back of my head, and the sheer pain that filled my head blocked out my mother shouting at him.

My father sent another curse at me that had me standing up straight and left me unable to blink.

I had to watch as they sent a skin-boiling curse at the man and a bone-breaker at the woman. Sally-Anne cried the entire time but I was trapped in my father's spell. I honestly don't know what I would have done if I could move. Run, maybe, or cry myself. I knew begging on my hands and knees would not stop this, in fact it would probably make it worse and last longer.

The woman died first, I'm not sure which spell did it, but a swift cutting charm to the man's wrist had him blood dry and stone still in a matter of minutes.

They didn't bother with Sally-Anne herself. She'd just watched her parents slowly murdered, after all. When my father let her down, I thought she was going to be sent on her way with the horrors in her mind and nightmares forever.

Instead he just killed her with an _Avada Kedavra_ and her little body crumpled. In the following silence, my parents glared at each other before my father came to undo his spell. When my body didn't do what I told it to, shout, scream, flee, bawl, it wouldn't even _shiver_, he gave me a pat on the back. My mother just scowled and left us.

So, as you can see, _basement_ is not exactly the right word.

…

**_A/N:_**_ Hope you liked it! Drop a review and let me know what you think! Have a nice day!_


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